Note to author: Sriracha is suppoesed to have a fishy taate because fish sauce is a key ingredient, and ir is made from fermented fish.

It's not "supposed to" be made with fish sauce. The basic and traditional recipes, as well as Huy Fong's famous California variety, none of these contain fish.

One of the taste-test contenders includes dates!

While there are specialty varieties of Sriracha which contain fermented fish, this puts them in another class of nam chim, or dipping sauces, and it's all good. I love fish sauce.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nam_chim

During the Huy Fong sriracha shortages, I started making fermented hot sauces using blends of chilies we grow ourselves, vegetables and fruits. It turns out that we prefer them to the Huy Fong commercial variety. A useful starting point is this repo [1]. Another, with a deeper dive into pepper and fruit selection and preparation is [2].

[1]: https://github.com/aweijnitz/recipe-el_fuego_viviente

[2]: https://www.seriouseats.com/fermented-hot-sauce-how-to

I've never been a huge fan of sriracha but I have to say I miss Huy Fong's sambal oelek. I finally found some decent sambal at Trader Joe's but I still prefer Huy Fong's, I hope it comes back.

Nice post. I've found Trader Joe's option to be somewhat decent, but still not better than Huy Fong's.

Like this blog though, will be diving into more posts.

For OG "Rooster Sauce" lovers who's hair my be graying, I've found Underwood Ranch is the only replacement that brings me back to the flavor profile from before they switched hot pepper growers.

It could be placebo of course!